


Candlelight

by gillianaunofficial



Series: Stella x Scully: Cancer Arc [1]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: Cancer Arc (X-Files), F/F, Post-Episode: s04e12 Leonard Betts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillianaunofficial/pseuds/gillianaunofficial
Summary: This is essentially a prequel to the other two Stella x Scully cancer arc fics so read this first maybe.
Relationships: Stella Gibson/Dana Scully
Series: Stella x Scully: Cancer Arc [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523828
Kudos: 11





	Candlelight

After the Leonard Betts case she hadn’t felt the same. The first night she’d woken up with blood on her pillow, drops from the blood that was streaming from her nose. She’d known. As soon as she’d got in the car that night, she’d known. However much she wanted to reject the thought, she knew. She knew she had cancer. The fear hovered over her, Mulder ever doting on her as her nose bled, him unknowing to her deathly little secret. She needed to get away from him, needed space to let her thoughts grow and figure themselves out. She drove out to Chicago one Friday night, the streetlights glowing, leading her in the direction of some kind of salvation. She dialed the number that she knew off by heart, the one she could recite even in grave danger, she dropped a coin into a phone box in the cheap hotel she’d booked a room in. She clutched the receiver to her ear, letting it ring twice before the subject of her call picked up.  
“Stella Gibson speaking.” The English accent cut through the stuffy air, almost a surprise to Scully. She welcomed the exhilaration with open arms.  
“It’s me.” She said, her voice on the edge of a whisper.  
“Dana?”  
“I need to see you. Meet me in the Chicago House Hotel bar. Please.” Scully said, her words suddenly pouring desperately out, water from a broken dam.  
“Of course.” Stella said, her voice like a shock blanket.

Scully drummed her fingers against the hardwood of the bar, an almost untouched glass of wine sat with her, the red liquid sitting midway up the glass, rippling as her fingers met the bar. She waited, impatient. She needed her. She needed to see Stella. She watched the foyer from her seat in the bar until she released a breath of relief when she saw the figure of Stella Gibson float through the hotel, a white wraparound shirt and black pencil skirt. The ever constant Stella Gibson. She awkwardly raised a hand in an effort to catch her attention. She didn’t need to, Stella had already seen her and had begun to come towards her. She sat down in a bar chair next to her, the brown leather squeaking as she settled on it. She ordered an Old Fashioned, unneededly justifying it by saying “I’m in the mood for something a little fancier than usual.” Stella watched the barman mix her drink with the eye of a hawk. She smiled as he set the drink in front of her, she placed one hand around the glass, tracing the angular patterns that decorated it.  
“What did you want to see me for, Dana?” Stella asked, the warmth she only let Scully feel melting around them like Greek honey.  
“I wanted to tell you something. I thought it would be important for you to know, just in case.” Scully said her words on the edge of becoming a stutter. Stella could feel something bad creeping upon the horizon. The choice of words Scully had used concerned her.  
“Well?” Stella asked, sipping her drink.  
“I have cancer.” The words dropped like a nuclear bomb, making Stella buckle from the inside out, her atoms colliding and exploding.  
“What?” She said, almost too shocked to speak, the drink she still held slipped out of her hand as the muscles went slack, the cocktail splashing her feet as the glass smashed on the floor. “Fuck.” She said, looking down at the mess below her. The glimmering broken pieces mirroring her now lost composure.  
“I don’t know what kind of cancer yet.” Scully said, pulling her back to reality.  
“What do you mean you don’t know what kind of cancer?” Stella said, almost outraged at Scully’s nonchalance.  
“I haven’t had a biopsy. I just know I have it.”  
“What? How? I…” Stella’s words trailed off, her questions confused.  
“It’s a long story.” Scully replied, a tired look crossing her face.  
“I have all the time you could need.”

They sat in Scully’s hotel room, with its cracked plaster walls and mould covered bathroom. A heaviness filled the room, seeming to be attempting to expand the room, aggravating the grey cracks. Stella was ready for it to buckle around them at any moment. They just sat on the bed, silent, hands laced together, the chaos of their lives whipped around them as they stood in the eye of the storm. Stella looked at her, her gaze pointed downwards, the mascara that she wore smeared around her eyes, a grey mess adding to what tiredness Stella could already see clinging to her eye sockets.  
“Let me help.” She said, her other hand joining Scully’s. She flinched, the added human contact like wind on the almost extinguished flame of a candle that was at the end of its life.  
“There’s nothing you can do, Stella.” She said, the words flat.  
“Why did you call me here then?”  
“I just wanted you to know.”  
“Why?”  
“You know fine well, why.” Scully said, the energy to be sarcastic worn down leaving solely annoyance. Stella’s heart ached, all she wanted to do was protect her, keep her alive she would spend all her life trying to save this woman despite everything. All she could feel was love, pressing on her chest, the invisible weight of emotion.  
“We should get married.” Stella said, her voice low, although incredibly certain of the words.  
“What?” Scully said, confusion appearing on her face, the same expression she would give to one of Mulder’s insane claims of extraterrestrial life. Stella dropped her hand and got off the bed, lowering herself to the floor on her knees, her skirt constrictive.  
“Dana Katherine Scully, will you marry me?” Stella said, her unwavering gaze attached to Scully’s averted eyes, she wrapped her arms around Scully’s shins, the juxtaposition of hard, sharp bone and soft, malleable flesh. Stella and Scully. So similar and yet so different. Scully could feel her heart beating in her chest, the uncertain flutter that came with Stella’s question. Her breathing slowed, a steady in and out. The whole world seemed to be stuck in anticipation, not a single noise penetrating the thin hotel walls.  
“Yes.”


End file.
